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6 Feb 2017

Tenant guilty of illegal sub-letting

A Charlton housing association tenant who sublet his home has been prosecuted and ordered to repay more than £4,000.

Aldio Raji was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment suspended for 18 months and ordered to undertake 180 hours of unpaid work within the community at Woolwich Crown Court on Friday January 20. The 50-year-old was ordered to repay the unlawful rental profit he had made of £4,330.29, £500 in costs and a victim surcharge of £100.

Mr Raji had obtained a one bedroom property with Charlton Triangle Homes (CTH) at Valiant House in 1999 but in 2015 tenancy officers suspected he might be subletting it illegally.

Thanks to Government funding Greenwich council’s Unauthorised Occupation Team (UOT) was able to offer assistance in an investigation which discovered Mr Raji had been charging £800 rent for the property since June 2014.

Last October Mr Raji was charged with offences relating to the Fraud Act, the Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act offence and one offence under the Protection from Eviction Act for having illegally removed a tenant from the property. He pleaded guilty to three charges when he appeared at Woolwich Crown Court last month.

Councillor Maureen O’Mara, the cabinet member for customer services, said: “The demand for social housing is at an all-time high for all social housing providers. Due to the excellent joint working of the Royal Borough and the CTA we have managed to catch another housing fraudster and another property has been returned. This will now be allocated to a Greenwich resident in genuine need.”